The WHO, the global governance of health and pandemic politics

Introduction (Michael A Peters)

The World Health Organization (WHO) has been subjected to serious criticism for its handling of the COVID-19 virus, specifically that it failed to act decisively to stop the global outbreak and that the organization became subservient to China’s politics and unable to demonstrate its independence. Under the International Health Regulations (IHR) adopted by the Health Assembly in 1969, the WHO’s main responsibility has been the management of the global regime for the control of the international spread of disease.¹ The WHO has faced several pandemics after the introduction of the IHR: the H1N1 influenza pandemic in 2009 followed by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014 and in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2018. The COVID-19 pandemic is by far the most serious pandemic and its management has been further complicated by the fact that the pandemic occurred within a sharply escalating deterioration of US-China relations, heightened by the trade wars. As David P. Fidler (2020a) comments in his health blog:

From the beginning, commentary in the United States framed the epidemic in China in geopolitical terms, used it to blame China’s political leaders and system for the tragedy, and faulted WHO for complicity with China’s perceived deception and propaganda…

Today, in the COVID-19 pandemic, the world’s most powerful countries are demanding that WHO follow their respective sovereign interests for reasons that have little to do with global health. WHO finds itself in this predicament despite, over the last decade, defining its leadership in global health more through its scientific, medical, and public health capabilities than its authority to challenge states politically under the IHR.

Fidler (2020b) remarks that global health faces a very different context than it did a short time ago under the global regime of liberal internationalism. He remarks that the conditions that enabled an era of global health governance and international cooperation no longer exist:

Great power competition has returned. Leading democracies are inward-looking, politically polarized, and on the defensive. The internet has become a tool of political repression, a dystopia of disinformation, and a source of national insecurity. Climate change threatens societies around the world with irreversible harm.

The likelihood of the WHO to be able to operate neutrally and with independence under the new competitive conditions has strong implications for funding of the organization, for the eradication of diseases and for international cooperation in the management of pandemics. In one sense this is a model and trial case for the operation of other UN and world international organizations like the WTO and the IMF.

How possibly could the WHO carry out its responsibilities for international public health effectively in a world system that is already deeply polarized in what seems like a new Cold War? In any assessment of how effective WHO has been in the current COVID-19 pandemic must of course take into account criticisms that face the larger organization of which it is a part but the assessment must also examine the way in which the virus became quickly politicized as a discourse to be manipulated for political reasons. The two main sources of an ‘infodemic’ scale has undoubtedly been the conspiracy theories and false information generated by the Trump administration that first racialized the virus (‘The Chinese Virus’) and then propagated damaging myths about COVID-19 – its origins, its infection and death rates, its spread and its management control. This deliberate misinformation has done incalculable damage and fed into the other major source – the nationalist populist and far-right insistence on individual freedoms or rights sparking a constitutional debate just when the US and the world required an international collective approach to the management of public world health.

The Reality Check team of BBC News reviewed four major claims of President Trump to find them all compromised with no or little evidence to back them:

1. The WHO failed to adequately obtain, vet and share information in a timely and transparent fashion.

2. Through the middle of January, it parroted… the idea that there was no human-to-human transmission happening despite… clear evidence to the contrary.

3. The WHO has ‘an alarming lack of independence’ from China.

4. One of the most dangerous decisions… from the WHO was… to oppose travel restrictions. They actually fought us.²

The Economist reports that China hawks in the Trump administration have devised a series on ongoing punitive measure against China:

In recent weeks America has imposed sanctions on senior Chinese officials, including a member of the Politburo, for their part in atrocities against Uighurs in Xinjiang; added 11 Chinese companies to the Commerce Department’s blacklist, for complicity in those atrocities; declared China’s sweeping claims in the South China Sea illegal; revoked Hong Kong’s special status for diplomacy and trade; announced criminal charges against four Chinese nationals who officials say were spies for the People’s Liberation Army; and ordered the closure of China’s consulate in Houston, supposedly a hub for espionage and influence operations, the first such move since the normalisation of relations in 1979 (China retaliated by closing America’s consulate in Chengdu). The first hint of trouble in Houston came when videos surfaced online of Chinese diplomats hurriedly burning documents in their courtyard—an apt metaphor for more than 40 years of diplomatic engagement going up in smoke.³

Under these circumstances in such a a deeply politicized environment how possible it is for such an organization to abide by its own ethical principles, especially when the actually possibilities of international cooperation are fast disappearing or being bent in the direction of major power’s national self-interests, when blaming China had become a major scapegoating strategy to enhance votes back home. Indeed, it brings into question the maxims and doctrines of liberal internationalism on many areas of international cooperation going forward at a time when China is rising and becoming more assertive in foreign policy and the US is beating-up on China.

The WHO website makes clear its values and ethical principles in so far as they reflect the UN organization and it also provides information on its constitution and stakeholders. Here are the first three principles:

• Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

• The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.

• The health of all peoples is fundamental to the attainment of peace and security and is dependent on the fullest co-operation of individuals and States.⁴

It’s clear that the attainment of peace and security depended upon ‘the fullest co-operation of individuals and States’, part of the philosophy of Internationalism as it grew up in the twentieth century after the two world wars.

Liberal internationalism dates from nineteenth century Britain based on notions of free trade but the view was also not inconsistent with British imperialism. Socialist internationalism emphasized the concept of international solidarity among workers irrespective of national borders resulting in Socialist Internationals. The system that was established after WWII after the Bretton-Woods conference in 1944 when the IMF and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) – both headquartered in Washington, D.C. – were created reflecting America’s prominence as a global financial power, and quickly becoming the basis of a world architecture that has prevailed in one form or other during the Cold War and after. Now this dominance and the neoliberal graft onto the world system is faltering especially after the Global Financial Crisis but also neoliberal style of globalization has been sorely tested by COVID-19. It must be remembered that WHO is part of a declining world system based on liberal internationalism and the shifting functions of UNCTAD (UN Conference of Trade and Development) and ECOSOC (UN Economic and Social Council). One of its biggest obstacles is the shift to the authoritarian right that as some commentators argue on the whole actively disparages all forms of international co-operation. Yet Orellana and Mihelsen (2019) argue that ‘Reactionary Internationalism’ - the philosophy of the New Right – ‘seeks to reconstitute its normative architecture on the basis of inequality among identities. This entails dismantling liberal economic and rights-based norms and reframing them around transactionalism and power grounded on identity. Reactionary Internationalism emerges as a distinct philosophy that identifies a hegemonic normative bind and advocates its unravelling so as to liberate subjects understood as defined by their birth-cultural identity.’⁵

Perhaps the largest change to the system has been the internal shift to financialization that demands a certain level of indebtedness to function. As Wallerstein indicates ‘Far from being “the end of history” and a new world order dominated by the United States’, since Vietnam, has resulted in the US has been involved in a number of wars and conflicts, most fought around the control of oil and nuclear weapons.⁶

As the pandemic winds into a ‘second wave’ in Asia, America and Europe, and develops new epicenters in Brazil, Africa and developing countries, the rather banal thought expressed by the media in different ways that the pandemic could perhaps reshape world order certainly bears further investigation. CNN’s Nic Robertson, for example, reporting on the WHO annual assembly May 21–27, writes: ‘Europe outright rejected US President Donald Trump's vision of the world this week. Tensions between these historic democratic allies that have been simmering since Trump came to office three years ago have now come to a boil during the coronavirus pandemic.’⁷ He argues that the pandemic has accelerated a global change in the balance of power as evidenced in ‘Europe's conciliatory approach to China relating to an investigation into the outbreak’ rather than the Trump administration’s accusatory witch hunt. As he argues ‘almost every single geopolitical dispute are being exacerbated by the pandemic, sharpened by the complexity and urgency of the situation’ accentuating a three-way battle for dominance between US, China and Europe. Robertson’s view might be seen as somewhat western-centric. The analysis that takes seriously the end of the Cold War as a competition to competing hegemons might suggest something different than a ‘bi-polar future’ as Parag Khanna (2019) suggests:

While the US-China trade war and talk of a ‘new Cold War’ suggests a bipolar future, the ultimate law of geopolitics is not the succession of hegemony from one superpower to another but rather entropy: the diffusion of power among an ever-growing number of confident power centers.⁸

The pandemic has been strongly politicized by the Trump administration: he began by praising China in its handling of the crisis only to turnaround to point the finger of blame at China when the number of Americans dying from the disease drew attention to the inconsistencies, misinformation and conspiracies generated by Trump regime was used to deflect responsibility for its own mismanagement.

Trump also turned on the WHO accusing it of being a Chinese organization. He had also called COVID-19 ‘the Chinese virus’ and repeated earlier claims that it originated in a BSL-4 Lab in Wuhan. At the same time is has frozen the US contribution of $400 million (roughly 15% of the budget) to the WHO pending a review. Donald Trump claims the WHO had ‘failed in its basic duty and it must be held accountable’. He said it was too ‘China-centric’ and repeated claims of China’s misinformation about the virus. French President Emmanuel Macron has condemned Donald Trump’s decision to suspend funding to the WHO indicating that slashing the budget in the middle of the global crisis was more than bad timing. Macron and Merkle launched a $8 billion drive to develop a vaccine and China has since donated $2 billion. The Australian Liberal Government arguably becoming a US client state although its trade is heavily with China called for a global inquiry into the origins of the pandemic. The focus of the inquiry with deft handling has shifted from the threat of investigating China to a review of the global response.

Meanwhile the world number of confirmed cases is 17,660,523 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 680,894 deaths, as reported to WHO (4 August 2020).⁹ The pandemic has heightened US-China tensions and been used to both deflect Trump’s mismanagement of COVID-19 and develop anti-Chinese sentiment in the countdown to the US elections in November. Perhaps, more importantly there are signs of a deeper split in US-EU relations with Europe no longer content to follow US policy or bow to US bullying. On the other hand, Australia under the Liberal Government wants to become develop a closer relationship with Trump’s administration. This speaks to a split in the Western alliance with US, China and Europe representing different blocs and perspectives with the English-speaking countries of US, Britain and Australia forming a neoliberal economic bloc. At the same time, the full economic consequences of the pandemic – of second wave and opening up too soon – as well as massive unemployment appear to be more crippling to the neoliberal bloc with China, by comparison, ready to emerge strongly and to pursue a more assertive pragmatic line of trade-backed international politics. In this environment we inquire into the governance and politics of global health, and its consequences for global health management philosophy. In the race to make a vaccine we must ask the question – is vaccination the answer or a technofix if underlying conditions are not addressed? Is a philosophy of global health based on universal values possible?¹⁰

WHO recognizes the threats to global health in its 13th General Programme of Work and multiple global health challenges that spring from climate change, noncommunicable diseases, global influenza pandemic, fragile and vulnerable social and economic environments, antimicrobial resistance, high-threat pathogens like Ebola, weak primary health systems, anti-vaccine conspiracies, and the like (with no statement of political threats).¹¹ The problem of global health is mundane, millions dies from preventable deaths each year. The problem is rather than management of healthcare is more than just a scientific or technical matter, it is also about the politics and ethics of the cost and distribution of healthcare.¹²

President Trump has withdrawn funding of the WHO and given notice that he intends for the US to withdraw from the world body. Australia has called for an independent investigation into the origins of the pandemic. A resolution pushed by the EU and Australia calls for ‘scientific and collaborative field missions’ to trace the path of transmission including the World Health Organisation's (WHO) handling of the crisis. The call for an independent review was backed by China and the resolution was passed by the 194 member states of the WHO.¹³ Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand has been appointed to lead the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPR) with the former president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, which has now become more of ‘learning lessons’ than a witch-hunt or blaming exercise. The interim report is due in November with the full report in May 2021.

Guiding philosophies and conflicting interests of the WHO (Stephanie Hollings)

In the mid-1900s, states came to the realization that to protect and maintain public health, multilateral cooperation was needed as public health could no longer be seen as the unilateral power of a sovereign state (Fidler, 1998). With the progress in transportation technology (steamships and railroads), connecting more of Europe with the Middle East and Asia, the European powers of the 1800s, increasing became wary of pandemic threats such as cholera, yellow fever and bubonic plague coming from their colonies and reaching their economically evolved nations (Cueto et al., 2019). Thus, despite the European powers hesitations on behalf of their Westphalian beliefs, of non-intervention and state sovereignty, there was an increasing number of conventions held on sanitation and quarantine measures, often resulting in bickering, rivalries and some mutual agreements on the importance of stopping the viruses of the ‘uncivilized “other”’ (Cueto et al., 2019, pp. 11–12)

Consequently, the idea of an institution geared towards global or international health predates the ill-fated League of Nations and the United Nations. Brown et al. (2006) trace that honor back to the 1902 organization, International Sanitary Office of the American Republics, which would later develop into the Pan American Health Organization (currently incorporated as one of the six regional branches of the WHO). The other early 20^th century players in the game of international health where the Rockefeller Foundation, the 1903 created Office International d’Hygine Publique (OIHP) which was joined by 12 European states and lastly the 1921 Health Organization department of the League of Nations (Brown et al., 2006). It must be noted, that with most of these early organizations, their goals and guiding philosophy were not the liberal principle of improving the world’s health but more so in line with the implicit mission of the OIHP, to protect the European powers, who signed on, i.e. the ‘favored nations’, from diseases and maladies from the ‘less favored ones’ (Cueto et al., 2019) or as Morley (2020) explains to preserve inequality, while fighting off the symptoms of inequality (sanitary barriers), so as to allow capitalists to expand and exploit more of the world. In other words, it could be argued that preserving the neo-liberal order, was the key to the beginning of global health institutions.

The July 1946 International Health Conference, representatives of 61 countries (the 51-member states of the UN and 10 other states) adopted the Constitution of the WHO, although it would not come into operation until April 7, 1948 (CITI I/O, 2020). The WHO, has matured into an organization made of 194-member countries and two associate members (Lidén, 2014). The WHO’s main task could be designated as ‘the global guardian of health’ (Huang, 2020). Like its predecessors, the guiding philosophy of the WHO is not so simply expressed in just terms of the neo-liberal order. The Preamble avers to basic human rights of health, life and security, fitting for the year of 1948, which also saw the birth of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in definite cadence with the Age of Reason and other notions of fundamental human rights (Grad, 2002). However, no conversation about the WHO will be complete without the dichotomy of capitalism versus communism.

The COVID-19 pandemic has not been the first time, in which the WHO has been critiqued as ‘lacking effectiveness’ (Andresen, 2002), spawning from often weak leadership (Andresen, 2002), budgetary issues and extrabudgetary funds- how they will be used and who gets to decide (Brown et al., 2006) i.e. donor priorities vs. global health priorities (Lidén, 2013), having no power under international law to enforce guidelines or measures (Westphalian principles of state sovereignty), although some like Fidler (1998) argue that globalization of public health changes as well as undermines the definition of a ‘sovereign state’, conflicting interests and influences of member states and private donators (Brown et al., 2006) and constant political pressures. Nothing encapsulates this problem more than the above stated capitalism versus communism.

In 1949, the Soviet Bloc withdrew from the WHO, citing that the WHO and the UN was dominated by the USA (Fee et al., 2016). A claim substantiated by the fact that for many scholars, the WHO was seen by the USA as a mechanism for American foreign policy (Newscenter, University of Rochester, 2020). At the World Health Assembly in 1949, a communist delegate, asserted that the WHO was a battleground for

two opposing points of view … [that of the Soviet Union] standing for the interest of humanity, which demands that the attainment of medical science should serve the whole human race … while the capitalist camp represents the interest of a minority who consider science as a source of income and as a weapon of war. (as quoted in Fee et al., 2016, p. 1912).

It seems quite ironic that it is now the United States’ turn, led by President Trump, to follow the lead of the Soviet Bloc, citing domination of the WHO by the rising Chinese sphere of influence, highlighting that once again, the conflicting guiding liberal philosophies of the UN and the WHO amongst the floundering of the neo-liberal order, the competing world views of hegemony, bi-polarity and multipolarity, liberal internationalism and the ever-ongoing battle of the foundations of capitalism and communism.

The WHO strategy in managing Covid-19 (Ogunniran Moses Oladele)

One of the strategies employed by the WHO in managing the pandemic (COVID-19) and its attendant crisis is by christening it COVID-19. The World Health Organization (WHO) came up with different acronyms before arriving at COVID-19. On January 7th, 2020, the WHO named the highly contagious and pathogenic viral infection caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 and originated from Wuhan city, Hubei Province, China, in December 2019 as novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV). Novel Coronavirus was later renamed after genomic sequencing as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). On January 30th, 2020, the WHO declared it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). The disease it causes was then named Corona (CO) Virus (VI) Disease (D) 2019 (19) (COVID-19) on February 11th, 2020. The WHO then finally declared the disease a pandemic on March 11th, 2020.

Another strategy employed by the WHO in handling this global pandemic is to develop globally accepted vaccines on COVID-19 for the whole world. There has been an increase in promising candidate vaccines, over 160 vaccine candidates are currently being developed, with over 21 candidates in Phase 1, Phase 2 A and B, and Phase 3 (www.who.int). It is, therefore, the responsibility of the WHO to regularize this increase. On July 13th, 2020, in Geneva, the research and development blueprint (R & D Blueprint) under the WHO set up an autonomous group of experts in the field to develop the proposed features and criteria for evidence-based and autonomous evaluation of all vaccine candidates. This group also came up with a guide of scoring to promote consistency and probability of evaluation (www.who.int). The working group of experts worked on a system that advises WHO on evaluating the selection of candidate vaccine(s) on COVID-19. Critics (including the Trump administration who has repeatedly criticized WHO) are likely to express nonchalant attitude on the part of WHO for coming up with this group on July 13th, 2020, on what the organization declared a pandemic on March 11th, 2020.

The World Health Organization has responded to one of her major critics (US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo) who reportedly said the health official had struck a deal with China that has influenced the WHO's decisions. The WHO chief Tedros said that allegations from the US Secretary of State are ‘untrue and unacceptable’. But the question is how could this be ‘true’ or where is the ‘truth’ between both forces?

Research and development blueprint under WHO is another strategy devised to contain COVID-19. This Blueprint had earlier been activated on 11–12 February 2020 at the Geneva headquarters to speed up diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics for COVID-19. The first blueprint was to ensure cordial relationships between scientists and global health professionals, improve research and development, and come up with new standards and norms to learn from and improve on the worldwide response (www.who.int). But it is over six months now the blueprint has not come up with a resolution that will set the world free of COVID-19.

Another strategy that reflects how the WHO has been handling this pandemic is by informing the whole world of the means of contacting COVID-19. The World Health Organization seems to be doing well in this aspect. On March 29th, 2020, the organization published modes of transmission of the COVID-19 virus. This publication was updated on July 9th, 2020, by adding more information on droplets by particle size and three pertinent publications (www.who.int). Some modes of COVID-19 transmission were not initially reported in China, such as through airborne transmission, from contact routes and respiratory droplets which form in the immediate environment around the infected person (Ong et al., 2020), or through direct or indirect contact with an infected person's urine and feces (Zhang et al., 2020).

The WHO has been recently recommending droplet and contact precautions for health care workers who are treating COVID-19 patients The organisation has recently recommended airborne precautions where aerosol-generating procedures and support treatment are performed. Also, the use of PPE, frequent hand hygiene, maintaining physical distances, respiratory etiquette, avoidance of unprotected contact with patients with fever or respiratory symptoms, disinfection of environment, and respiratory etiquette have been approved.

The WHO has responded positively in managing the COVID-19. However, lapses in some areas are inevitable due to some logistics and other reasons.

The politicization of Covid-19 and the failure of reactionary internationalism (Benjamin Green)

On July 4^th 2020 president Trump took the stage at an independence day celebration cum campaign rally in South Dakota. In the shadow of the ‘titans of Mount Rushmore’, as Fighter Jets flew overhead, the president addressed a nation riven by both social upheaval and a skyrocketing Covid-19 death toll. On a day that was until very recently marked by collective celebration (patriotic sentiment/the joy of a three-day weekend), at a monument whose tainted grandeur speaks clearly to the past ethical and moral compromises which now threaten contemporary US social cohesion - this moment, perhaps above all others, was ripe for a unifying show of executive leadership. However, in a speech which marked a particularly surreal moment for 2020 (which says a lot), president trump took it upon himself to deliver one of the most politically divisive speeches in recent US history. While availing himself of the surrounding political spectacle, Trump vowed to defend an American culture built around Judeo-Christian values from the ‘evil’ enemies which seek to destroy the very fabric of Western civilization – a culture which is responsible for making the US ‘the most just and exceptional nation ever to exist on earth’(The White House, 2020). Within this particularly tone-deaf display of self-serving nationalist bravado, the enemies of the state are labelled as those on the far-left – the ‘Liberal Democrats’ who’s radical ‘indoctrination and biases pervade all manner of social institutions’ (The White House, 2020).

Part and parcel of the paranoia and fear-based political discourse for which he is known, Trump’s July 4^th speech also offered no less than a full-fledged promise to his political faithful: a return to American exceptionalism (manifest destiny) based on claims of God-given cultural superiority. Highlighting what Orellana and Michelsen label as a benchmark of contemporary New -right (Alt-Right for US) discourse, this promise represents the New Right’s desire to ‘unshackle the innate potential of birth-culture’ through the abandonment and disestablishment of international normative frameworks (2019). Specifically, it is this discourse of cultural nationalism within the US which has allowed stalwart (albeit problematic) liberal international institutions like NATO, the UN, and (in the midst of a global pandemic) the WHO - to fall victim to the transactional power based-politics of this ‘reactionary form of internationalism (Orellana & Michelsen, 2019). Somewhat understandably, this reactionary global revisionism may be seen as a desire to combat the excesses and betrayals of a globalism that has primarily benefited the wealthy elite, to the detriment of a ‘hollowed out American middle-class’ (Li, 2017). However, if this reactionary internationalism was simply based on the desire to supplant failing liberal international economic structures, in favor of cooperative frameworks geared towards US competitive advantage - China would represent a very well-suited conspirator. Specifically, China’s vision of a multi-polar global order is based on a state-centric form of globalization, allowing for the existence of subjective cultural differences (abhorring universal moralism), while revering win-win economic prosperity and national sovereignty above all else (Li, 2017).

However, as has been made exceedingly clear the cultural nationalism of the New Right does not simply represent a desire for renewed economic superiority, rather, it is the belief in Western (See: American) cultural superiority which cannot abide a world system oriented towards the benefit of others. This blind belief in a cultural nationalism, which Trump has called the culmination of a 1000 years of wisdom and reason (The White House, 2020), is responsible for the effectiveness of Trumps’ diversionary attacks against China. In his politicization of the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump evokes daily the specter of China as a form of statecraft designed to spread the false ‘clash of civilizations’ narrative (Musgrave, 2019) to confused and frightful constituents. Moreover, by gaslighting his audience into a fear and hatred of China (Kung Flu, Wuhan Virus, China Virus), he manages to draw attention away from his many failings (Herman, 2020).

However, recent national and international humiliations, such as the failed attempt by the US to elicit WHO reforms aimed at countering perceived ‘outsized Chinese influence’ (Young, 2020), as well as the recent walking back (in the face of collective University pressure) of a policy aimed at deporting international students (Jordan & Hartocollis, 2020), highlight the fact that Trump’s blustery transactional political manoeuvring has already failed to deliver on the promise of American Exceptionalism. Moreover, as the US Covid-19 death toll passes 135,000 (CDC, 2020) and the economy continues to suffer after consecutive failed attempts to re-open, the devastating lack of leadership exhibited within the US’ absentee response to the pandemic has been laid bare. It seems that while, for a time at least, the politicization of Covid-19 struck a nationalist chord that allowed Trump to lay blame at the feet of China and Far-Left Liberals. However, as the very swing states that were key to his victory in 2016 are now being hammered the hardest by record Covid-19 infection rates, recent polls are beginning to show a corresponding drop in public support for Trump and a dramatic surge in support for his democratic rival- Joe Biden (Smith, 2020). Therefore, while it seems that many in the US wish to see a second-term Trump-led US return to the days of unrivalled white Anglo-Saxon protestant global hegemony – they will vote for Biden. Moreover, if these recent polls are any indication, the US voting populace is finally beginning to show a bit of Trump’s much-vaulted Western rationalism and wisdom – or at the very least they are tired of seeing their loved ones die from Covid-19. Either way, better late than never.

Michael A. Peters , Stephanie Hollings and Benjamin Green
Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, PR China
[email protected]

Moses Oladele Ogunniran
Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development, UNESCO, New Delhi, India

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 International Health Regulations (2005) Third Edition, https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/246107/9789241580496-eng.pdf?sequence=1.

2 Coronavirus: What are President Trump's charges against the WHO? Reality Check team, BBC News, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52294623.

3 Would a Biden administration be softer than Trump on China? https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/07/29/would-a-biden-administration-be-softer-than-trump-on-china?utm_campaign=the-economist-today&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=2020-07-29&utm_content=article-link-1

4 https://www.who.int/about/who-we-are/constitution

5 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/review-of-international-studies/article/reactionary-internationalism-the-philosophy-of-the-new-right/98D948051CC58BA3BCBD2F40C9F3648F

6 The world system after 1945, Immanuel Wallerstein (2011), Eurozine, https://www.eurozine.com/the-world-system-after-1945/

7 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/23/world/pandemic-world-order-trump-intl/index.html

8 https://www.paragkhanna.com/home/everyone-has-moved-past-the-us-china-trade-warexcept-the-us-and-china

9 https://covid19.who.int/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIt6S0943J6gIVwRErCh2_RgYKEAAYAiAAEgLPPPD_BwE

10 See ‘The end of the era of generosity? Global health amid economic crisis’ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1747-5341-4-1;

‘Opening our eyes to Global Health; a philosophy of universal values’ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4673063/

‘Critical Global Health: Responding to Poverty, Inequality and Climate Change; Comment on “Politics, Power, Poverty and Global Health: Systems and Frames”’

https://www.ijhpm.com/article_3304.html?_action = articleInfo&article=3304

11 https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/ten-threats-to-global-health-in-2019

12 http://mcrglobalhealth.com/2015/12/09/global-health-and-philosophy/;‘The proposal of philosophical basis of the health care system’, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11019-016-9717-2

13 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6893255-WHO-Draft-Resolution.html.